We spent another week in Marsh Harbour hoping to retrieve our new chain plates and do the repairs, alas, they were the wrong size and now we have to wait for them to make them again.  And they are the only game in town.  Again, problems in paradise so no big deal.  We had a delightful Christmas – very simple.  We each got something from the dollar store and then we made gifts.  Graham’s gift to us was the most amazing.  It is a poem about our adventure and all that he enjoys about it.  I will include it below.  We started an evening meal tradition wherein we each get two scraps of paper.  On one we write something we are grateful for and on the other we write something about which we might be overwhelmed and would like to ask God to take away.  We then put our papers in decorated Chinese Food-type containers except they are green and purple and plastic.

Today, December 30^th, we left Marsh Harbour to go back to Man-o-war Cay to visit some folks on another Troubadour from Annapolis.  They have 6 grandkids with them, among them is another 11 year old boy.  We also plan to visit Great Guana Cay where the world famous Nipper’s is.  Ultimately we will go back to Marsh Harbour in a week or so.  Graham is very much enjoying his time off from school.  This week he was able to watch TV and play Wii as we were hooked up to shore power at a marina.  One day this week, he and Matt went scuba diving and were quite close to a 7-8 foot shark.  I don’t even like to snorkel and am afraid a shark might get me in either the shower or the swimming pool.

Happy New Year to you all!

Laughter

Longeyes

Family jokes

Scuba diving is awesome

Family night is every night

Everything is really pretty

We get a lot more dairy milks

Making new family traditions

Can see lots of sea life from the bow

Menchie’s frozen yogurt in Annapolis

They have so many flavors of Mentos

Meet lots of interesting people and dogs

We’re still going to have Christmas, just a simpler one

Sometimes we can get cable TV, which we couldn’t at home

Feels like we are not tap-dancing to get everything done anymore

Today is New Year’s Eve.  We started the morning by baking cinnamon rolls and watching Finding Nemo.  Matt is busily putting up a windsock called a Breeze Booster which  catches the wind from the hatch in our forward cabin and sends it through the main cabin and into the galley and aft cabin (all 40 feet of it!).  We are getting ready to go to the beach for the day.  Graham loves to play in the waves for hours and hours.  Matt got a new Frisbee for Christmas and I love to sit in the sun and read.  We are in a very quiet place this New Year’s so I doubt  there will be any action here.  That is fine with us – perhaps we will find some fresh fish and ring in the New Year with a special family dinner.  Graham is looking forward to playing with new friends who are here on vacation from Chesapeake, VA.  They are off snorkeling now but we will meet up with them later.

Around the tree Christmas morning

We are celebrating Christmas in Marsh Harbour.  Missing our families but thank goodness we can stay in touch via Skype.  We have good quality voice connections and sometimes video when the Wifi is speedy.  Christmas was low key with small gifts.  Not a lot of room for big gifts anyway.  We want to wish all of our family, friends, co-workers a very Happy and prosperous New Year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM!!!!

Again a week has passed with no entries.  It seems the days are so packed with relaxation there is scarcely time to write.  I was saying to Matt last night that at home when we would go to bed, I would so look forward to sleep as relief from the day and I would often dread the chaos that the next day would hold.  I noticed last night that I am now wishing that we could skip sleep because I so look forward to the adventures that each new day holds.

Last week we enjoyed a bikeride to a faraway beach.  It was beautiful.  We played Bingo for cash at the local watering hole – it was so fun!  We went to the local Christmas Pageant in Hopetown where 52 kids practice every day for 10 weeks.  It was fabulous.  The proceeds send an orphanage full of kids from Nassau to camp for the summer.  I can’t say enough about what a spectacular show it was.  We made friends with a lovely couple from Connecticut who came to Hopetown on their sailboat and then decided to buy a house here.  We went for a boatride with them and collected shells on the beach and ran with their beautiful golden retriever, Clyde.  They let us use their cottage to fix our wind generator blades.  We also climbed to the top of the Hope Town (Elbow Reef) Lighthouse for the best view yet.  This is the lighthouse that is now the header picture on our blog with Troubadour in the foreground.

The entrance to the Elbow Reef Lighthouse

Hope Town Harbour panorama from the top of the Elbow Reef Lighthouse

We have finally set up our DVD player and have been having family movie nights which have been so enjoyable.  As Christmas approaches we are looking forward to cooking on the boat, just the 3 of us, and homemade gifts from the heart as everything sent from the States has a 150% customs tax on it.

When Matt and I were in the dinghy yesterday in Hopetown Harbour a HUGE (8 foot) dolphin swam right under the dinghy – it was such a thrill to see!  Then we came into Manowar Cay and while I was up on the bow checking for shallows I kept seeing stingrays everywhere – very exciting stuff.

Love and blessings to you all during this holiday season,

Amy, Matt and Graham

I haven’t updated since before we went to the Christmas Festival in Marsh Harbour — ten days ago!  The festival was lovely.  We went with our friends from Green Turtle Cay, Lana, Roger and Nicole Parks.  Nicole is in 7th grade and is doing the Calvert Homeschool program as well.  There was singing and dancing and crafts and facepainting and delicious food.  I had one bite of Lana’s coconut dessert and fell in love.  I was determined the following week to find it in a bakery; I even commissioned a bakery to make me a “coconut jimmy” which is what they came up with after I described it.  There was no joy in Mudville but I am still on the lookout.  We ended up staying in Marsh Harbour for another week — till Friday, December 9th waiting for packages and sailboat repair stuff.  Finally, we motored about four miles away to Hopetown which is so beautiful.  It reminds me of Chatham in Cape Cod.  They have a red and white striped lighthouse which is decorated like a Christmas Tree.  It is called the Elbow Reef Lighthouse and was built in 1864.  It is hand-wound, not automatic.  All of the marinas and restaurants are lit up as well with multi colored lights.  It is so beautiful at night as we are anchored out in the harbor with other boats and lights all around.  The Atlantic Ocean is just over the hill — about two blocks so you can hear the waves crashing on the shore at all hours.  So peaceful.  On Saturday we walked all around town, had a delicious meal and then took a break from school work and working on the boat and we just all went to the beach for the day.  It was fabulous.  It was sunny and about 80 degrees but the breeze made it so that we were never hot.

Then we went to the fresh fish market (a man’s backyard where he has a little shack with a fridge with his catch of the day and a cash register.)  Matt prepared a delicious snapper.  This morning we are going to church in the playground — there is no Catholic Church here but the priest travels from island to island on the ferry conducting mass.  But first we are going to have brunch ourside in a resort by their fresh water pool and 30 feet away from their live coral reef.  Tomorrow we will go to Captain Jack’s for Bingo!

Brunch at the Hope Town Harbour Lodge's oceanside grille.

This probably should have been our first blog.  It was a gift to us from our family friend, Margo Wagner, age 11.

The Journey of a Lifetime

A family sets sail, with memories in mind, memories that will stay with them for a lifetime.  On shore a family waves goodbye, bearing the same memories and wishes of a safe journey.  Many days and nights, a family remembers their friends, and memories they share.  Many miles away, on a boat bobbing in the ocean, a family thinks of friends waiting on shore.  They fish and they swim, they laugh and they cry, and they live their lives.  Sometime later the families meet with so much to tell, and so many new memories to be made.

On Wednesday we traveled from Green Turtle Cay to Marsh Harbour (a city of 5,000).  We are staying at the Conch Inn marina while we fix some boat stuff, catch up on school work and cable TV and stock up on inexpensive groceries.  Before we left Green Turtle Cay, Matt and Graham went diving with the dolphins.  Unfortunately they didn’t find any dolphins but Graham speared a fish and they caught some lobster which Matt prepared for dinner — curried lobster with rice with a recipe we got from an Embarrassment of Mangoes.  And tonight he made Cheesy Chicken with Avocado and Tomato Salsa with huge avocados from the Dominican Republic.  Tomorrow is the Annual Christmas Festival in Marsh Harbour with music, food, crafts and more.  It goes till 11 pm.  But a cruiser’s midnight is more like 7:30 pm.

Amy judged this to be the winner

On Saturday night we went into the town center for a barbeque, decorated golf cart contest, and the Newleywed Game. Amy was a judge for the golf cart contest (Santa’s Sleigh won) and Matt and Amy won the Newleywed Game beating out a couple who have been married for 26 years! Amy had so much fun and Matt was a good sport. Graham was generally embarrassed.

We have all kinds of sea creatures living around us at Bluff House Marina on Green Turtle Cay.  We have a huge and very beautiful starfish that lives just on the edge of the shallow water and goes in and out with the tide each day.  It is larger that my whole face and is bright bright orange.  We met some neighbors yesterday who own a very big power yacht.  They have many cobalt blue underwater lights on their boat so that at night you can see all the fish.  It is like being in an aquarium with fresh air and a million stars all around.  It gives you a peaceful easy feeling (music lovers enjoy the trivia 😉